


What angels do in daylight

by BanyanIndigo



Series: Artists and Angels [2]
Category: White Collar (TV 2009)
Genre: Kidnapping
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-23
Updated: 2020-11-23
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:49:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27681730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BanyanIndigo/pseuds/BanyanIndigo
Summary: Neal calls Peter right before he's taken, Leading to Peter trying to find his friend before it's too late. Peter's perspective of What artists do in darkness.
Series: Artists and Angels [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2024263
Kudos: 9





	What angels do in daylight

His phone rang on the bedside table, low vibrations wrenching him from sleep. Elizabeth stirred beside him. He checked the time first, it wasn’t even six am yet. That made his next move of checking caller ID irrelevant, only Neal would call him so painfully early. 

Neal’s voice came through the speakers, he sounded weird. “Hey Peter, please tell me you are outside my house.” At first though Peter was fooled by the confident, easy manner in which the other man spoke, but he’d known him long enough to look beyond false bravado. Neal sounded scared. 

“Who’s that hon, the office?”

He blocked the speaker for a second, telling Elizabeth who called him. 

“Neal what are you talking about, why would I be at your house so early. You woke me up.” He hoped he sounded fine, if not a bit tired. 

Neal’s breathing came through the phone for a second before he spoke again. 

“Someone’s trying to get in.” He heard some shuffling noises, still trying to process what Neal was saying when the younger man spoke again. “I can hear them trying to pick the lock, they’ve been at it for about thirty seconds or so.” 

Goddamn it, that wasn’t good. Peter sat up and squeezed El’s shoulder. “Ok, I’m heading over. Go into the bathroom and lock the door. I’ll be there soon.” He hung up, kissing his wife before throwing his clothes on and leaving the house. 

His phone buzzed on the seat next to him. He read the message stopped at a red light. 

6:21am I think they’re inside. Hope you get here soon.

Damn it. Peter drove faster, weaving through rush hour traffic to get to June’s. Despite his best efforts it still took almost twenty minutes to get there. He ran up the stairs, and upon reaching the large from door he found it unlocked. 

He pulled his gun, taking the stairs up to Neal’s apartment.

The door was cracked. He slowly eased it open with the tip of his shoe until he could see in. The room was deserted, a chair knocked to the floor was the only indication that anything was wrong. Peter cleared the room and the patio. Neal’s favorite mug was sat on the table, still half full. Neal’s phone was sat on the toilet seat, his text to Peter still up on the screen. The bathroom door looked fine, meaning, damn it, he must’ve tried to talk to whoever broke in and gotten taken. 

Peter reached for his phone to call Diana at the exact moment he got the alert. Neal’s anklet had been cut. 

Damn it. 

He shut the alert down before agents stormed Neal’s apartment, calling Diana instead. 

“Hey boss, did you cut Caffrey’s tracker?”  
“No, he was taken from his apartment. I’m here now.”

“How do you know he was taken?” Her voice was laced with a mixture of concern and doubt. 

“Because he called me and said someone was trying to get in and now I’m at his place and he’s not here.”

“Boss, it sounds like he ran.” 

Peter felt anger rising in his stomach. He knew Neal well enough to know when the man was scared. Besides, if Neal was going to run he would’ve left a message. 

“Just get over here, bring Mozzie if you can find him.”

He didn’t wait to hear her response. 

If Neal had left a message, his open phone might be a good place to look. 

He walked closer to the screen, it displayed the text Neal had sent to him, as well was an undelivered message right beneath it. 

6:22am Peter, hurry. 

He took the phone and pocketed it. He righted the chair, sitting down in front of Neal’s unfinished coffee. 

Diana’s arrival shook him from his thoughts, she walked into the apartment, nearly dragging Neal’s paranoid friend behind her. 

“Listen suits, I don’t know why I’m here or what you think you’re doing but I demand to be let go!” He struggled against her death grip on his arm. 

“Neal’s been taken.” 

He froze, fingers stilling from attempting to free himself. 

“What?” 

Peter nodded. 

“Do you know where he is?” He asked, if Neal really did run then Mozzie would be the only person who knew where. 

“Of course not! What you think I would kidnap my best friend? What, what like some kind of scheme to break Neal from the clutches of tyranny you call law enforcement?” 

“Is that a confession?” Diana asked, stepping away from him as he whipped around to look at her. “What the hell do you think? My best friend is missing and you aren’t even going to look for him because you think I did it.” He wailed a bit, clutching at his arm where she had held. 

“Listen, no ones giving up. I don’t think Neal ran. He sounded scared on the phone.”

“That’s his job Peter, lying. If you can’t accept that then maybe I should call in someone else to look for him. I’m not saying he wasn’t taken,” She held up her hands defensively, evidently picking up on the anger radiating off of Peter. 

“It’s very possible. What I am saying is that we have a better chance of finding him if we don’t exclude any possibilities yet.”

He strode across the room, causing Mozzie to duck out from his path. Flinging the door open he pointed at the lock, surrounded in scuff marks. 

“He told me someone was trying to get in. He said they were taking a long time. Look at the lock Diana.” 

“You know Caffrey would have thought to do that.”

He slammed the door shut, reconsidering for a second before opening it to call Mozzie to come with him. For once the small man didn’t try to fight or stall, simply following him down the stairs and into the car. 

They went to the office, and only when Peter stepped into the elevator did Mozzie hesitate. 

“Is this some kind of elaborate trick to get me up there?”

Peter held the door, trying not to roll his eyes. 

“I’m only going to say this once. Neal was taken and I’m only asking you up here to help me find him, because I’m worried. Ok Mozzie? I need your help.”

The man cautiously entered the elevator like it was a trap, and only seemed to relax when he was comfortably settled in the conference room. 

They started by pulling traffic footage from the area, but nothing stood out. There weren’t any cameras outside of June’s so getting a direct shot wasn’t going to work. 

“Get me the footage from the surrounding blocks, I want to plot the routes for these cars here.”

“All of them boss? There must be over a hundred cars going by.” Diana was right, even though Peter narrowed their search window to a couple of minutes it was still New York early morning rush hour, the roads where packed. 

He picked out the angle with the clearest view of the passengers, showing her. 

“We can rule out any cars with only one person for now. IF Neal was taken there would most likely be multiple assailants. So let’s focus on those first.” He stalked out of the room. Logically he knew Diana was right to be skeptical, hell he should be MORE skeptical. But something about the whole situation told him that Neal wouldn’t do this. He wouldn’t run like this. He wouldn’t run leaving Peter thinking he was in danger. IF, no, this is Neal, WHEN he ran again he would make sure Peter knew. Right?

He poured himself some coffee (fresh actually, it was still early) and headed up to his office. He chose a different angle to search cars, coming up mostly empty, except for three vehicles, all of which showed up more than once. He gathered the information, tossing it to Diana. 

“Focus on these three first, they all circled the house.”  
She nodded, jotting down some notes. “On it boss.”

Mozzie left at sometime in the afternoon to do some digging of his own. Peter watched the nervous little man shuffle out the glass doors, choosing to duck into the stairwell to avoid the elevator. He hoped he found something. 

The day stretched on, the three cars he’d pointed out all turned out to be nothing, two lost tourists and one nosey old lady. He tapped his pen against the desk, trying to tune out his emotions and focus on finding Neal. 

“Boss, you got a second?” He nodded. 

“I know it’s a long shot but the one car you had me look at earlier?” She set the file down in front of him. “It belongs to a Mrs Grayson.” He nodded again, silently begging for her to get to the point. “Well, it might be worth getting her down here to answer some questions.” She pointed to the dead area in front of June’s house. “According to the cameras she’s in front of June’s during those few minutes. She might have seen something.” 

Peter told Diana to call her, still frustrated that it had taken them this long to come up with anything. And even this could be a dead end. 

Diana left, and Peter grew more and more uneasy with the growing shadows on the wall. Neal had been gone since this morning, and the sun was setting now. 

So where the hell was Neal.


End file.
